Daines joins water project funding group

Montana’s sole U.S. representative joined colleagues from the Dakotas Wednesday in shifting money to regional rural water projects including in north-central Montana.

A press release from Rep. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said the congressman joined Reps. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., and Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., in sponsoring an amendment to shift $6 million from solar energy programs and another $6 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s administrative budget, putting $10 million to water projects and $2 million to deficit reduction.

That includes increased funding for the Rocky Boy’s/North Central Montana Regional Water System and the Fort Peck/Dry Prairie Regional Water System, the release said.

“Water is a basic need of life. In Montana, we depend on a steady supply to irrigate our crops, water our livestock and provide energy through hydropower,” Daines said during the debate on the amendment on the floor of the House. “The struggle for water continues to create health challenges for Indian country and nearby communities, in addition to making economic development more difficult.”

The amendment passed without opposition.

The Rocky Boy’s/North Central project was approved by Congress in 2002 with an authorized price tag of $228 million, but has received limited funding since then, as has the Fort Peck/Dry Prairie system since it was approved in 2000.

The single largest chunk of funding for the Rocky Boy’s/North Central project was $20 million appropriated through the federal stimulus package of 2009.

Earlier this year, Daines sponsored a bill that is a companion to a bill created by then-Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and co-sponsored by Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and John Walsh, D-Mont., who was appointed to replace Baucus this year when he was appointed U.S. ambassador to China.

Walsh faces Daines in the 2014 Senate race.

Those bills would set up a permanent fund to use for the completion of authorized regional rural water systems,

The funding bills would create an authorized rural water project fund, directing the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation that oversees those projects to take $80 million of federal oil and gas royalties and proceeds from sale of power from federal hydroelectric dams that goes into the reclamation fund — generally $1 billion to $2 billion a year — and put it into a fund for rural water projects.

The reclamation fund

was established in 1902 along with the creation of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, to fund bureau projects and operation and maintenance of its facilities.

Daines’ bill is awaiting action in the House Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power.

Baucus’ bill passed out of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources May 22.